


One True Shape

by Anarchyinplasma



Series: Life and Times of a Risen [5]
Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Failing at King's Fall, Gen, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-04 06:37:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10270469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anarchyinplasma/pseuds/Anarchyinplasma
Summary: Arcturus and No Respect For Our Elder fail at Kings fall. They are taken. AU within this little series of connected one-shots.





	

**Author's Note:**

> More of this. Just a note, since I wanna give credit where due, the little Taken pseudo-grimoire card bit was written with the help of a friend of mine, he's not got an account on here yet, otherwise I'd link it, but I don't like taking full credit.

In his head, Arcturus was screaming. His brain grasped at his vital functions as his light was torn viciously from his body; whisked down to the the cellar of reality’s mad King to join the rest of his fireteam. Harsh vacuum tore at his lungs through Graviton Forfeit’s broken visor, His grip on First Curse remained, but it was the only thing that did, clutching his cannon even to his death. In the back of his mind, Thorn writhed in ecstasy as it was let free from it’s prison. They had failed. Oryx stood before them as lord and master, drinking in his victory as Ghosts around him flickered in hopelessness and died, sending last bursts of data back towards the city, towards Cayde and the Vanguard.

Then he died.

And then he was falling, past the lights and the endless cold between the stars, past the threads of creation and the spool of reality and the void beyond ending. He was just falling, through his lives, no Ghost to whisk him out of his delirium and set him back on his feet with First Curse in his hand and a target to shoot at in vengeance. Just the cold dark spaces between pinpricks of light.  
“Lichtpunkte;” his mind supplied from the depths of his memory, a scene from a small classroom in pre-goldenage England, before even that was spirited away into the endless night.

Eventually the falling ended, even while it continued. The King stood before him, having shrugged away an avatar of his perfect shape. And the King spoke, in hushed tones it told of the perfection of the universe as it reached out, fist full of fire made from the blackest night and the scales of hell-worms, and thrust that fire into his soul, where it spoke to him, in honeyed tones, of his destined perfection.

“You are a Risen, progenitor of the protectors in that forgotten cradle of humanity, resting cold within the void.  
You are defined by what you are not, dark, cold, whole.  
You base your existence on your scraps of life and hope and comfort.

You have been Taken.

You need not rely on such weak things as fellowship anymore.  
Nor must you return to your days of lawless wandering.  
You may fit in as you never have.  
You may be with, not apart from.

There is a knife for you, it is shaped like [dismissal of grief].  
Take it up.  
Cut away your diseased tethers of former life.  
Embrace your one true Shape.”

Black fire crawled enviously over Arcturus’ body, shearing away his self, sending it screaming in protest into the void between the material planes to rest with his light in the cellar. His image flickered and distorted, First Curse became Thorn, indistinguishable bone and metal death. Thorn shimmered in the iridescent void; glistening with vital fluids running it’s shell a glossy onyx. The bones hummed their agreement. His rifle changed, melting and running into ebony strands of loneliness, shaped by the cold emptiness between the still shining pinpricks of light in the background. Weapons of sorrow and despair abounded. His self reflected the universe, fading shades of white and black. Stark contrasts to the life of what was once the hunter.

Individuality left, replaced merely with an expanded sense of self, aware of 5 others, and all else, everything in creation beckoned to be taken, begged to be shown their perfect shape.

The Taken agreed.

In the darkness between spaces, far from a mortal form and embraced deeply within the logic of the sword, The Shattered looked down from his architecture of middling contempt and high arrogance, scoffing at the vacancy closed to one door but left open to another.


End file.
